Our coaching staff - nearing completion, and more on Geno, Sammy, Max...

Head coach Geno Ford comes in with 3 years of D-I head coaching experience and a couple more years with tiny schools like Shawnee State and Muskingum.

Greg Graham - not yet confirmed - is said to be the likely pick as an assistant. He has several years of head coaching experience at Boise State...and all of his experience is in the far west. He was fired a year ago at BSU, after a 15-17 season. He also has some experience as assistant at OU, St. Mary's, SDSU, and San Jose St.

Willie Scott - we all know Willie -- comes with a year of juco experience and now a year at BU.

Jaden Uken - was in a non-coaching position at Kent State, DBO, three seasons, plus some time spent as juco assistant.

Patrick Beilein - if confirmed as an assistant has been the graduate student manager at UM for two two years then one year at Dartmouth in a non-coaching position.
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/beilein_patrick00.html

That's still not a whole lot of experience in total -- especially when the BU fan base seemed to be calling vigorously for an upgrade with a staff that was more experienced. But Graham's experience was roughly on par with Merf's and the rest of the guys are such newcomers they make Kyle Vogt & Eric Buescher look like old veterans.
I just hope the fan base is happy and doesn't turn on Geno and his staff the way they have on Mo and JL.

One more thing -- if Geno can keep Remy Abell in the fold we will at least have a degree of depth at the guard position that will be close to what we need (Geno's hitting the road next week to see Remy and do the sales pitch) - given we lose AW, Dodie, and Sam... The lack of depth at guard (mostly due to injuries the past few years) has hurt us lately. But if we add Donivine and Remy and get DSE, Jake, and Walt all back with more experience then we would be ok barring more injury.
The loss of TB also hurt us with lack of depth at forward and Jake Eastman frequently was playing a forward position..even further hurting depth at guard.
it sure wouldn't hurt to find a way to land one more solid guard.
One thing I suspect -- that despite rumbles elsewhere if we do add a shooting guard -- I suspect it will NOT be Paris Gulley.
I like Paris Gulley but I have stood right next to him many times and can say with certainty that his advertised height of 6-2 is not accurate. He is likely under 6-0.
He is probably 20 lbs smaller than Donivine and is not a point guard - so to say they are similar is silly..and BU probably doe snot need another very small shooting guard.

Maybe Geno's Ohio connections can land Juwan Staten -- the 4-Star PG who just left Dayton with the coaching changeover. It would certainly depend on how committed Staten would be to coming to Bradley -- because we have not had a lot of success with transfers.


One of Geno Ford's long time friends and grade school & high school classmates just wrote a nice blog spot on Geno...
http://www.wnde.com/pages/cheapseats.html


Here's a pretty nice piece on Sammy Maniscalco -- BU will miss him...
http://illinihq.com/news/mens_basketball/2011/04/14/maniscalco_wants_to_win/


BTW -- did you see there's a lot of talk about Rob Jeter and the open Miami head coaching job.
Miami just hired one of Jeter's friends as their new AD...
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/13/2163347/um-to-hire-wisconsin-official.html


Update on Max Bielfeldt
http://www.umhoops.com/2011/04/14/thursday-notes-max-bielfeldt-makes-it-official/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter



Last thought -- I sure hope this Bradley professor has tenure...
http://www.bradleyscout.com/index.php?view=article&id=1855%3Aprofessor-urges-release-of-coach-search-finances&option=com_content&Itemid=7